Citizens into prisoners
by Henry A. Kissinger
A foreword to “The Berlin Wall: 20 years after.”
Features
Tyranny set in stone
by Roger Kimball
Why we must not forget the lessons of the Berlin Wall.
Weak will, high wall
by Donald Kagan
On President Kennedy’s failure in the face of barbed wire.
Russia before the mirror: reflections on 1989
by Jonathan Brent
On the realities of cultural transformation in Russia.
The costs of abstraction
by Anthony Daniels
On the intellectual irresponsibility of Soviet sympathizers.
Poems
Most popular
Fiction chronicle
Margin walkers
by Stefan Beck
On The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker; Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers; Homer & Langley, by E. L. Doctorow; and Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
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Theater
Antique Romans & the Dane
by Kevin D. Williamson
On Jude Law in Hamlet, the Atlantic Theater Company’s Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet, Collaborative Stages’s House of Yes, and The Retributionists by Daniel Goldfarb.
Art
Watteau at the Met
by Karen Wilkin
On “Watteau, Music, and Theater” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Exhibition note
by Marco Grassi
On “The Art of Devotion: Panel Painting in Early Renaissance Italy,” Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont.
Exhibition note
by Carl W. Scarbrough
On “In Pursuit of Knowledge: 600 Years of Leipzig University,” The Grolier Club, New York.
Exhibition note
by Mario Naves
On “Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction” at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.
Gallery chronicle
by James Panero
On “Sam Francis: 1953–1959”at L&M Arts; “Jay Milder: Recent Work” at Lohin Geduld Gallery; “Abby Leigh: The Sleeper’s Eye” at Betty Cuningham Gallery & “Silver Anniversary: 25 Photographs, 1835 to 1914” at Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Fine Photographs.
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Music
New York chronicle
by Jay Nordlinger
On the Europeanization of the Metropolitan Opera, Alan Gilbert’s New York Philharmonic, Paul Jacobs at Juiliard, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
The media
Down the memory hole
by James Bowman
On the art of forgetting selectively.
out of interstitials
Books
Notebook
Bartók, Parry & Lord: a flawed legacy
by Stephen Schwartz
Debunking the myth of “Homeric” Balkan folk songs.
Notes & Comments
Yale & the veil
by The Editors
On Islamist pressure in New Haven.